Nicholas: Lord of Secrets (18 page)

It helped, to be this close to him, and it tormented to know he would not join with her. The greater torment was Leah’s sense that Nick hadn’t been honest with her regarding his reasons for his self-enforced limits.

“So is this what you wanted?” Leah asked when Nick eased his hold and shifted off to her side. “Is this what we’ll share besides a passing nod on the dance floor?”

“Not quite,” Nick murmured, shifting to his side. “There’s a bit more.”

Leah yawned, slid a hand down over his buttocks. She didn’t come right out and tell him to be about it, though she gently squeezed a handful of taut male muscle.

“You trust me?” Nick asked, brushing the hair back from her forehead.

To break her heart and keep her safe while he did it. She squeezed him again. “In bed, I trust you.”

“Spread your legs a little,” Nick suggested, his hand stroking the center of her chest. “You’ll be more comfortable, and please recall”—he pressed a kiss to each of her closed eyes in turn—“you are to relax and not peek and trust me.”

He covered her mouth with his, and while his tongue teased at hers and slipped over the heat of her mouth, that hand shifted to gently caress each breast. He palmed the weight of each one, glided his fingers teasingly over her nipples, and gave her just the weight of his hand resting over her. Leah arched up, trying to inspire him to greater activity, but he growled a warning and let his hand drift down over her ribs, then her stomach.

He stroked his fingers over her navel, evoking surprising sensations from a place on her body Leah had never really considered, and again he paused, while Leah experienced the warm weight of his hand on her naked belly.

“Nicholas, must you be so…?”

“Tender?” he suggested. “Careful… deliberate… enthralled… enchanted…?”

“Aggravating.” Leah landed on the word with relish, because Nick was wandering about her body as if the growing restlessness inside her were pleasurable, and to Leah, it was increasingly bothersome. Aaron had not left her feeling like this, had not taken more than a few minutes of kissing, poking, and apologizing, then grunting and making the bed creak.

“Can’t have my lady aggravated.” Nick brushed the backs of his fingers over the down on Leah’s mons, and her breath escaped on a gasp.

“Eyes closed.” Nick bent his head over her breast. “Legs spread a little.” He settled his mouth over her nipple just as his hand began to stroke her thighs, and this time when he suckled, it was Leah growling. Her eyes were closed, and behind her eyelids, colors were dancing and surging, and her body felt the same way. Full of heat and color and odd, novel sensations.

When she felt him trace up the crease of her sex with a single finger, Leah’s hands found Nick’s shoulders and gripped hard.

“Easy, lovey,” Nick murmured between kisses. “Move if you want to, against me.”

He pushed gently against her mons, and she pushed back, slowly but not so gently. The undulation of her body eased her and made things worse, too, but she was helpless to stop it as Nick’s deft fingers delved gently into her folds.

“You are growing eager,” Nick whispered as his fingers slipped higher. “Your body grows slick in anticipation of your pleasure.”

“God above,
Nicholas
…” She clutched at his thick wrist and stilled his hand. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Nick didn’t remove his hand.

“You touched me, and it felt like I rapped my elbow, but much, much worse.”

“You’ll grow accustomed to such sensations,” Nick said, his words laced with amusement, “and they’ll become more pleasurable if you’ll be patient with them.” He moved his hand again, with her fingers still circling his wrist, but this time he used a more definite pressure on the apex of her sex.

“Ye gracious gods…” Her grip loosened as her eyes fluttered closed, but still she didn’t let him go.

In silence, he touched her for long, fraught moments only there, letting her focus on that one source of sensation until she was breathing heavily and moving against his hand in slow, powerful surges of her hips.

“Nicholas…?” She wet her lips with her tongue, her arousal and bewilderment ringing in his name.

“Trust me,” Nick reminded her, dipping his head to brush his lips over her nipple. “Trust me and take your pleasure, Leah.”

Pleasure took
her
, as tight spasms seized Leah from the inside, turning her into a thrashing, keening, blind, and mindless wanton, her nails digging into Nick’s wrist, her body moving desperately to accept what he was giving her, her heart pounding with the sheer, terrifying glory of it.

“Too much…” she panted, and then Nick drew on her nipple, and the too much redoubled to be more than too much for long, shuddering moments.

When it passed, she lay on her back, body slack, mind slack, her only thought gratitude for the comfort of Nick’s hand, still pressed firmly against her sex. If he moved, if he moved even one inch, she was going to dissolve into fairy dust and drift away up the chimney.

He did move, but not that hand. Instead, Leah felt Nick’s other arm burrow under her neck and wrap her against his chest. That brought comfort, but not as much as when Leah shifted herself more closely still, hiking a leg over Nick’s hips and wrapping an arm around his waist.

She was profoundly grateful not to have to ask that he hold her. He seemed to know, and to know how to go about it, enfolding her snugly against him, but not so tightly she felt smothered.

Gradually, as the tumult in her body eased, Leah became aware of Nick’s erection. It lay along her stomach now, thick, hard, and hot, a discordant note of rigidity in a soft tangle of bodies. Tentatively, Leah reached between them and brushed her fingers across the plush head of his member.

Dear God, Aaron had not at his most passionate been possessed of such dimensions. She fitted her hand over him, testing his width and length in slow, careful movements. As intimately as they were embracing, Leah felt the stillness in Nick’s body, heard his sharp inhalation. She tucked her face against his chest and waited for him to dissuade her.

But he remained still, waiting, and so Leah followed her own urge to explore him.

She traced her fingers over his balls then teased through the hair at the base of his shaft. When she circled his shaft with her fingers then stroked the length of him, he hissed and pushed into her hand. She repeated the stroke, and he pushed more strongly.

“Show me,” she whispered. “Nicholas, I don’t know how… Show me.”

He wrapped his hand around hers and tactilely explained the rhythm, the grip, and the stroke, then left it to her as he held her tightly, tucking her leg up over his hip.

“Tighter,” he whispered, moving more quickly. “You won’t hurt me, I promise. Beelzebub’s cock stand, yes, that’s it…” A few more moments of that, and he gently disentangled her hand from him, so he was thrusting against her belly. Gripping her buttock, he held her to him, and in the seamless seal of their bodies, Leah felt a spreading warmth as Nick pulsed against her.

“Oh, lovey…” He tucked her head against his chest and kept her there, where she could feel his breath soughing in and out and hear his heartbeat as it gradually slowed beneath her ear.

“I hadn’t meant to do that,” Nick said, stroking a hand over her hair. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, his words striking hard against an ache that had been building in the pit of her stomach. He hadn’t meant to do that? Hadn’t meant to
share
pleasure with her, as opposed to visit it upon her unilaterally?

As arousal ebbed and fatigue reasserted itself, Leah’s previous sense of loneliness stirred back to life too. Except it wasn’t as simple as loneliness. Her throat constricted around a sharp ache, and what she felt in that moment was desolation.

Hopelessness.

It made no sense. She was wrapped in Nick’s arms, he’d just shown her more spectacular physical pleasure than she’d known existed, and he was promising her more of that as part of her due as his wife. He had even let himself find pleasure as well.

As the first tear squeezed its way past Leah’s closed eyes, she knew a despair so great that if Nick hadn’t been holding her, she might have physically flown apart. This closeness Nick was willing to settle for, it wasn’t going to be enough. For all Nick’s tenderness and consideration, it was without love, a subversion of the intended purpose of marriage, a parody of the union Leah had longed for.

He did this with many other women, and did more than this too.

Nick shifted carefully, bringing her over his body to sprawl on his chest. “Tell me again that you are all right, lamb.”

He’d felt the heat of tears, no doubt. Leah furtively wiped at her cheeks where she was curled against him.

“Here.” Nick reached out a long arm to the night table and retrieved a linen handkerchief. He dabbed gently at her cheeks, then while she shifted up, mopped at their bellies.

“We’re not quite spotless,” he said, “but the linens are safe. Now come here, let me hold you, and tell me what bothers you.”

“You mean well,” Leah allowed as she eased down against him on a tired sigh. “But you can’t repair my feelings, Nick. I do not believe I will be availing myself of this aspect of your marital offer.”

His hands, which had started stroking her back, went momentarily still, then resumed their steady, gentle caresses.

“You are not all right,” he concluded. “Talk to me, Leah.” He drew the covers up over her back and wrapped his arms more securely around her. “Please, talk to me.”

“I bore Aaron Frommer a son.”

Again, Nick’s hands went still on Leah’s back.

“I’m listening,” he said, angling his head to kiss her temple. Those two words were offered in what had to be the gentlest, kindest tone Leah had ever heard, and her resolution faltered.

“Aaron was a good man,” Leah said, “but he had not one tenth your skill with the ladies, Nick. He cared for me, though, and so I was pleased to find I carried his child. He would have been pleased as well.”

Nick apparently divined the argument she was about to make. “While I can’t be pleased to think my child might cost your life.”

“I bore my son easily, Nick. I labored but a few hours, and he was born with a perfect complement of fingers and toes.”

“Where is your child now, Leah?” Nick asked, his hands moving again, more slowly than ever.

“In heaven.” Leah took a shuddery breath. “He caught a fever when he was little past a year. I went into town to fetch the doctor, the midwife, the healer, anybody who might have been able to help. My Italian was far better than my brother’s, and by the time I returned a few hours later, my baby was gone. Darius gave me some time to grieve, but brought me back to England shortly thereafter. My mother was asking for me, and I did very much miss her.”

“I am so sorry.” Nick gathered her close, rolled, and blanketed her with his naked body. “I am so very, very sorry.”

He stayed there, over her, sheltering her and holding her until Leah was holding him in return and letting tears long repressed pour from her. She clung, and cried, and clung some more, until her grief was spent and her body too wrung out to cling anymore.

“I’ll be right back.” Nick kissed her nose and eased from her embrace. He brought her a glass of water, watching while she drained about a quarter of it, then helped himself as well. He set the glass aside and turned serious blue eyes on her.

“You will marry me?” he asked, expression pensive.

“I will. But there won’t be any of this pleasuring, Nicholas.”

“Move over.” He shifted and climbed under the covers with her. When she kept to her own space, Nick flopped to his side, curled his body around hers, and wrapped her in his arms.

“You did not enjoy what we did?” he asked, his cheek resting over her temple.

“My body was very favorably impressed,” Leah said, glad he could not see her face. “I’ve never known such sensations, Nicholas, and for that, I must thank you.”

“You’re thanking me, and now you’re willing to marry me, but you do not want to repeat the experience?”

“I do not.”

“Was it… me?”

“Nicholas?”

He shifted, his nose against her nape. “I’ve been told stallions are less vulgarly crafted than I am in my aroused state.”

“God above, Nicholas.” Leah glared at him over her shoulder. “You are the envy of every man, of this I can be sure, and you are the most magnificent dream of any honest woman. But in a sense, it is you that troubles me.”

He huffed out a sigh against her neck. “You want more from me than pleasuring.”

“I have more from you,” Leah reminded him. “You’ve told me I have your respect, your affection, I will have your title, and I do have your protection.”

“So what does that leave? And for the love of God, don’t reply that if I have to ask, you aren’t going to let me know the right answer.”

“I’m not sure,” Leah said, and she wasn’t being coy. “But whatever it is, it is important, and it was missing from this demonstration of your very impressive bedroom skills, Nicholas.”

“And it wasn’t missing with Frommer?” Nick asked, his voice betraying his frustration.

“It very likely was, but I had not the sense or the experience to know it.”

She drifted off to sleep while Nick pondered her words in silence. As sleep tugged at his brain, Nick tried to reason out why he should take a miniscule comfort from her words.

Leah had been willing to settle for Lord Aaron, just to escape her father.

No. Nick backed up and reconsidered.

Leah had been willing to settle for Lord Aaron
on
Lord
Aaron’s terms
, he clarified. Eloping, anticipating vows, risking scandal, and more scandal with the duel with Wilton.

She was willing to marry Nick and accept his protection, but not on Nick’s terms. Nick eased into his slumbers with the sure conviction that this somehow put him not just in a different class from the sainted Lord Aaron, but in a better class.

***

Nick waited in the Earl of Wilton’s library, his thoughts turned to his upcoming interview with his prospective father-in-law, and the marriage contract drafted and copied for Nick by his solicitors. He tried to mentally rehearse what needed to be said, and how, and his contingency plans, but thoughts of Leah kept interrupting.

Dear God, she’d borne
and
lost
a child, and lived with the secret of her grief for long, silent years.

It explained a lot, Nick reflected as he inspected weighty tomes likely chosen for display rather than the earl’s personal tastes. A mother’s grief illuminated Leah’s reserve, gave ballast to her sadness, and helped explain why putting up with Wilton since her return from Italy had probably been a mere afterthought for her. After losing a child, alone and in a foreign country, Leah Lindsey could survive a great deal. More puzzling was why she’d bothered to survive, and where she’d found the courage to endure what she had.

He paused on that thought, and it occurred to him that refusing to give Leah children was probably the one thing he could have done to most effectively add to her pain.

Jesus on a donkey.

The stinging lash of Nick’s conscience was stilled by the approach of footsteps in the corridor. Nick schooled his features to those of an anxious suitor, one who could be written off as big, slow, and harmless.

“Reston.” Wilton stopped halfway across the room, forcing Nick to come to him.

“My lord.” Nick returned the greeting with what he hoped was a suitably hesitant and hopeful smile.

“Shall we be seated?” Wilton gestured to a pair of padded gilt chairs Nick might easily have snapped into kindling. “The tea tray will be along presently.”

Wilton was a handsome specimen. Tall, lean, and sporting a full head of white hair, about which he was probably vain. His eyes were pale blue, but something about them put Nick in mind of a hungry reptile.

“I must say, Reston, you don’t waste time.”

“I appreciate your directness,” Nick replied, thinking a modicum of civilities would have been appreciated more. “Bellefonte is not enjoying good health, and I’ve made my papa a promise I intend to keep.”

“Never knew your father well,” Wilton mused, smiling at nothing Nick could discern, “but you have my wishes for his speedy recovery.” The smile belied the words, leaving Nick with simmering anger that had to be ruthlessly shoved aside.

“Thank you, my lord.” Nick let his gaze travel around the room, unwilling to launch his campaign until the tea had been brought. “You have a lovely house.”

“It’s comfortable,” Wilton allowed dismissively. “Wilton Acres is far more grand.”

“But your children and grandchildren are ensconced in Town, so you maintain a residence here.”

Wilton shrugged. “Needs must. One has parliamentary obligations.”

Nick had seen the barest hint of a flinch at the reference to the grandchildren, reinforcing Nick’s sense the earl was prone to vanity. The tea tray arrived in decorous silence, and Wilton suggested Nick pour, which was ungracious, and a tacit way to put Nick in the female role.

So Nick took his time and made an elegant business out of it, like the docile son-in-law he would never be.

“Your note suggested you had something personal to discuss,” Wilton prodded, sipping his tea and frowning. Nick had jotted off several notes last night while waiting for Leah to complete her bath, and tried to recall the exact wording of the one to Wilton.

“Urgent and personal. To be very direct, my lord, I wish to court your older daughter.”

“Why?” Wilton’s question was offered in such puzzled tones, Nick feared it was sincere.

“I am in immediate need of a countess,” Nick said. “I promised my father not merely a fiancée, but a countess before his demise, and I have run out of time.”

“Why Leah? You could have your pick of heiresses, debutantes, titled widows, and the rest.”

The question might have been from a concerned father watching out for his daughter, but the glint of condescension in Wilton’s eyes suggested he was simply looking for leverage.

“I am at a disadvantage when courting a wife,” Nick said, and there was some truth to the idea. “My size alone means the more diminutive women are of no interest to me, nor I to them. Then too, I have a certain reputation for trafficking with the demimonde, and the most protective of parents would not turn a sweet young thing over to my keeping. I need a woman who is practical, and experienced enough in the ways of the world that my peccadilloes will not dismay her. She must be of suitable rank and willing to marry immediately. I believe Lady Leah meets those criteria, and we appear compatible in the ways that matter.”

Wilton laughed shortly. “If you think so, I’ll not dissuade you.”

“You’d accept a match between us?”

“You are in a hurry, aren’t you?” Wilton took a leisurely sip of his tea, pinky extended just so.

Go
ahead, fool, enjoy your moment of power.

“I made a promise to my father,” Nick said. “He has been patient with me for years, but his health is precarious, and if I delay now, there will be mourning to observe.”

“Are you asking, then, not just for permission to court, but also permission to marry?”

Nick studied his hands. He wasn’t quite up to making them tremble, except possibly with the need to choke the life from Wilton in the next two minutes. “I am asking for both, if the lady will have me.”

“Her wishes are of little concern to me,” Wilton said, “but trouble yourself over them if you must. What terms do you have in mind?”

“Given the haste with which I make this request,” Nick said, “I suggest we get down to specifics now. I might be called to Belle Maison at any moment.”
Forgive
me, Papa.
“What specifics do you offer?”

The earl arched an eyebrow, and Nick conceded the man had balls.

An apologetic smile was Nick’s next feat of histrionics. “I believe a dowry is customary?”

“Oh, really, dear boy.” Wilton let go the most irritating laugh. “You cannot expect me to pay to have you take her off my hands, not when I’ve been keeping a roof over her head these many years long past her come out?”

As
if
Leah’s brothers hadn’t supported her in Italy out of their own pockets, as if she hadn’t served as Wilton’s unpaid housekeeper, as if Wilton hadn’t begrudged her every groat…

“There are many ladies who do not find a match in their first few years in Town,” Nick pointed out. “I was under the impression Mr. Lindsey had taken some interest in his sister’s welfare.”

“A jaunt overseas.” Wilton waved a hand. “What makes you think I wasn’t footing the bill for both of them?”

Offensive in every sense of the word, but a question and therefore not quite a lie.

“I cannot claim to have any knowledge of your family’s personal arrangements,” Nick said evenly. “Are you suggesting Lady Leah is to have no dowry?”

“She most assuredly is not,” Wilton snapped. “I am guessing, Reston, that your father’s circumstances have robbed you of the natural prudence a man in your position should show. Let me speak to you as a father, though, when I tell you she forfeited her dowry years ago, when she brought scandal and shame to this family. She made her bed, so to speak, knowing full well I could not countenance the option she chose. If you want her, you’re welcome to her, but you will pay for the privilege.”

“I will
pay
?” Nick knit his brows in the expected display of consternation, and he took a long, perhaps worried-looking sip of his tea.

“You will.” Wilton smiled evilly. “You’ve boxed yourself in with your promise to your papa, young man, and Leah can get you out of that box, if I allow it.”

Beelzebub’s pizzle, the man was unnatural.
“So what are
your
terms, my lord?”

“Your own finances are reputed to be improving, Reston.” Wilton’s pinkie finger was back in evidence. “If you are provided an instant countess, they will likely continue to grow, particularly as you take your seat and gain influence in government. For that privilege and Leah’s role in it, you will compensate me a certain sum.”

He named a figure, and Nick rendered in return a virtuosic display of restrained, gentlemanly dismay.

“If I provide that sum,” Nick said after a suitably awkward silence, “you will approve of a marriage by special license?”

“If you provide the sum prior to the wedding, yes.”

“I see.” Nick nodded, and nodded again as if thinking furiously. “Well…”

“Well.” Wilton rose. “Why don’t you have your solicitors get to work on it, and when you have a draft of something, have them send it along to mine. I really cannot spare this interview a great deal more time, you see, because your suit will stand or fall exclusively on the basis of your ability to meet my terms.”

Because,
Nick tried not to grind his teeth audibly,
Leah’s happiness means nothing to this man.

“It is fortunate,” Nick said, keeping his seat, “my solicitors, in view of my unseemly haste, have already been busy.” He withdrew the sheaf of papers from his breast pocket, reached across Wilton’s desk for a pen, and scribbled a figure onto the document in duplicate. “If you’d take a moment of your time, my lord, I think you’ll see that your terms are met herein.”

Wilton resumed his seat, but not before Nick saw a flicker of surprise and avarice in the man’s eyes. Nick passed him both copies of the contract and sat back, keeping a guardedly hopeful expression on his face.

By tremendous effort of will.

“How ill is your father?” Wilton asked as he perused the contract.